Yorkshire and sound

The Holderness region in East Yorkshire has one of Europe's fastest eroding coastlines. The Alderborough area is estimated to erode as much as 3.8 metres a year. Walking the coast line there were bits of earth constantly falling off, creating a deep rumbling sound. It made me think of doing sound recordings of this, it all felt very athmospheric and there is also the constant sound of the sea. I'm not sure how difficult this would be to record yet, how near to the 'fall' I would have to be and then it is the sound of the wind to take into consideration. I saw an really interesting exhibition last year called Soundings from the Estuary that combined sound with images as well as text. The different sounds were playing on an constant loop in the gallery.

I found some good locations in Yorkshire that illustrates what I want to capture but the light was not right for most of the time, to much sunshine which does not fit with the bleak landscapes I want. I will make another trip for sure to get better light and there are still more locations in the Yorkshire area that I want to explore.
I'm looking for more people to include in the landscapes, people that are in some way affected. I want to interview them and use their stories/thoughts with the images. I think the writing could fit well with a set of landscapes and would hopefully add more understanding for how erosion is affecting peoples lives.

Major Project Planning

I have some very loose ideas of what my major project will be so this is really just throwing some thoughts in the air and most of them are quite unrealistic. What I have been thinking and reading a lot about is the Arctic. I am fascinated by the concept of the north and the idea it seems to hold in the collective imagination as a hostile and much uninhabited place. I'm interested in the settlements/towns - the people who inhabit these places as well as the landscape that surrounds them. The idea is off course very wide and the area massive so it has to be defined in some way.
There is the white nights (24 hour light) as well as 24 hour darkness in winter (which will be hard to include in the time frame of the project).
Global warming is affecting these areas - in Alaska a whole village was moved due to erosion, seal hunters fall through the ice.
Then it is the quest for the Arctic(oil & natural gas), what some call 'the new great game'.

Some good books:
The Arctic - An Anthology (Granta)
Running with Reindeer - Encounters in Russian Lapland, Roger Took
True North, Gavin Francis

Other ideas is to expand on my coastal erosion project and maybe look at other areas in Europe or continue to photograph the Thames Estuary.

Selsey

I went down to Selsey in West Sussex just before Christmas and met with Richard Dearsley who started the action group Save our Selsey. The sea is moving in closer and closer in this area. Richard and his wife recently moved from their house on the seafront to a house further inland because it became unbearable to stay on. The sea kept crashing in to the garden and things needed constant repair.

Beautiful story on Turkey

British Journal of Photography (BJP) published a really amazing set of images about Turkey this week by photographer George Georgiou . The work is called 'Happy is he who calls himself a Turk'. The images are so layered with past and future, ideology and transition and incredibly beautiful. I just can't stop looking at them!

Hard drive failure

On New Years Day my hard drive went bust, a pretty aggravating start to 2009. Fortunately all my images were backed up so no real disaster. But I lost almost all research (my bookmarks) for this project and what I have been researching for the potential final project, emails etc, aggghhhr.... It was just one of those things I never thought of saving somewhere else. So it has been a lot of loading programs and collecting information but I'm almost back on track and ready to crack on. I had a really nice and relaxing Christmas back in Sweden and now I'm back in chaos land.

The right to defend your home

The court case of Peter Boggis, 77 fighting Natural England over if he should be allowed to continue building his sea defences to protect his home from falling in to the sea, in Easton Bavents, Suffolk got quite a lot of coverage in the national papers on 6th December.

Articles:

The Independent: 'Tide turns in favour of DIY sea barrier'

The Guardian: 'Coastal campaigner wins legal battle to save clifftop property'

The Times 'The Clifftop crusader wins his fight to repel the sea - by a technical knockout'

Natural England(a government body) argued that they want to make this stretch of coastline a 'Site of Specific Scientific Interest' (SSSI) and it should be allowed to erode naturally to reveal fossils etc. Boggis wants the right to protect his home, he has already put down 250,000 tonnes of clay in front of his house. This court battle also highlights the issue that 'if you don't allow someone to defend their own property then you must compensate them.' (The Times) This is something that is not happening in the U.K at the moment.

Birling Gap

Birling Gap, Sussex - A National Trust site